Potzblitz V25.0 OCT 18th 2024

[FunPolice749]

So I came back to this game and downloaded this mod but have been my ass handed to me. Playing as the central powers in 1914 and Russia just literally runs through me without a pause. I don't have enough troops especially since reserve corps seemingly can do nothing to defend against the larger corps. Is there like a mechanic I'm missing?

I just don't see how you can hold against Russia at all when they just have such overwhelming force from the get go.

[Robotron]

@FunPolice749: some tips you might consider for the standard "Moltke-Schlieffen" scenario:


- you should try to build 2 additional Austrian army corps before the Russians join the war, if low on PP play the "Increase industrial Output" event or move the Budapest Army Corps to Galicia which of course will then force you to stay defensive vs. Serbia for now.

- if possible put a second lab into "industrial Warfare" tech and put focus on it so it is unlocked around turn 9.

- if you feel paranoid about a Russian preemptive attack or if Entente has already played "Rush-mobilze Russian Army", play "Organize Defense of Galicia" or "German Army Redeploys", the latter also helps with the defense of East Prussia but lowers your chance for a German surprise attack in the west.

- build 2 additional German reserve corps and 1 army corps to be deployed in East Prussia, you can also rail in another reserve corps form the west.

- as soon as Russia has joined Entente you might consider using INTEL on Russia to unlock the "Russian Wireless intercepted" event.

- another gamble is to use your diplomatic points to INFLUENCE Sweden to join CP, every point of INFLUENCE invested gives you a 2% chance for the "German-Swedish Alliance" event to be available once Russia has joined Entente.

- the Russians get a rising combat bonus until either Lemberg was captured or "Victory at Tannenberg" was achieved by CP, so consider giving up Lemberg right from the beginning if you find yourself under too much pressure.

- play "Recall Hindenburg to active Duty".

- I found it no use trying to defend the Austrian border instead I prefer to move my units to rough terrain around Lemberg and dig in. I also try to make a quick thrust with cavalry and army corps toward Radom and then Warsaw, with a bit of luck you can snatch Warsaw early but be prepared to retreat back to Krakov if things look bad.

- In East Prussia you should only try to counter attack if Hindenburg and at least two army corps are available. Concentrate your attacks on one Russian unit in East Prussia to destroy it and force the "Victory at Tannenberg".

Here's a my standard setup in the east, it might not be the optimal but I feel comfortable with it.

Clipboard02.jpg (726.23 KiB) Viewed 1430 times

As a final note I might add that the mod's difficulty is a result of the demands from veteran players being involved in it's creation so you need to be able to comfortably beat the vanilla version of the game to be able to tackle this mod.

[FunPolice749]

@robotron Thanks for the tips! I'll have to try it again as maybe I'm just rusty and not used to how much damage units deal. One issue I also keep having is that national morale keeps collapsing for seemingly the smallest of mistakes. Like I was fighting on the Eastern Front and lost a single unit causing some event to fire that made Austria Hungary lose like 30 notational morale dropping them to like mid 60s. Is there a reliable way to rebuild that national morale because that is actually what made me keep losing when trying to play. I would stabilize the front but all these events would just keep chunking away at national morale and the something like Germany would give up over it.

[Robotron]

National morale can be raised using the "Wave of Patriotism" event which adds 15 points and later the "Patriotic Movement" events which add 2-12 points per use.
Also having a good ratio between kills caused and losses suffered helps but this is notoriously difficult for Austria to achieve. Taking Belgrade and picking off a few Russian reserve corps at Radom/Lodz before Lemberg is lost somewhat helps but Austria is expected to suffer quite a lot early in the game, especially if "Organise Defense of Galicia" was not played.

[Umeu]

So I came back to this game and downloaded this mod but have been my ass handed to me. Playing as the central powers in 1914 and Russia just literally runs through me without a pause. I don't have enough troops especially since reserve corps seemingly can do nothing to defend against the larger corps. Is there like a mechanic I'm missing?

I just don't see how you can hold against Russia at all when they just have such overwhelming force from the get go.

Robos advice is great. Depending on how you like to play, there are more "gamey" shortcuts in the early game.

I always disband any fighter given at the start. Depending on the random rolls, I sometimes also disband a cruiser battleship (taking the 5% nm hit for granted), just so I can squeeze an extra unit out. Also selling the naval lab for any power thats not britain or germany is probably best.

I usually like to build armored trains in the early game with france and AH because it's 1 turn faster than an infantry unit for 10 less PP, while the defensive value is the same in the first few key turns of the game. Placing and being able to use a unit to plug a gap can make the difference between losing Paris or Krakow. Also their high movement points is giid in the early game as warfare hasnt yet bogged down to trenches

Also my rule of thumb is, never build reserves. I do do it in the early game with France, AH and Germany, but with other countries, I try never to. If I have to build reserves, it genrrally means I'm losing the game. I also try tend to disband reserves whenever I can and replace them with better units.

I build trains early, cavalry only vs russia or ottomans to exploit the wide terrain.

And finally, artillery is king. I build artillery labs agressively and early to at least 10, but 20 or even 30 ammo per turn with major powers sometimes, then stockpile while i build more batteries. Then I pool them together, preferably 4 or more, but 3 is imo the minimum to force a front.

[FunPolice749]

Robos advice is great. Depending on how you like to play, there are more "gamey" shortcuts in the early game.

I always disband any fighter given at the start. Depending on the random rolls, I sometimes also disband a cruiser battleship (taking the 5% nm hit for granted), just so I can squeeze an extra unit out. Also selling the naval lab for any power thats not britain or germany is probably best.

I usually like to build armored trains in the early game with france and AH because it's 1 turn faster than an infantry unit for 10 less PP, while the defensive value is the same in the first few key turns of the game. Placing and being able to use a unit to plug a gap can make the difference between losing Paris or Krakow. Also their high movement points is giid in the early game as warfare hasnt yet bogged down to trenches

Also my rule of thumb is, never build reserves. I do do it in the early game with France, AH and Germany, but with other countries, I try never to. If I have to build reserves, it genrrally means I'm losing the game. I also try tend to disband reserves whenever I can and replace them with better units.

I build trains early, cavalry only vs russia or ottomans to exploit the wide terrain.

And finally, artillery is king. I build artillery labs agressively and early to at least 10, but 20 or even 30 ammo per turn with major powers sometimes, then stockpile while i build more batteries. Then I pool them together, preferably 4 or more, but 3 is imo the minimum to force a front.

Yesterday I did a playthrough as the central powers and eventually failed in 1917 when food crisis killed Germany while Russia somehow didn't surrender even though I took St. Petersberg. Got to Paris on the Western Front but couldn't actually take it as I got stuck. I built a lot of reserves and in hindsight that really hurt me because used those to fill gaps and it later on crippled my offensive potential although the biggest issue was just how big my army had grown as I had reached a point where Germany essentially got like 5 PP per turn. And eventually I just couldn't repair and keep balancing the mounting issue from occurring. Building more Artillery factories is probably something I will try next time so I can better break the Western Front.

One thing I want to ask is why does the enemy AI get so many fighters that are just better then mine? Like in 1916 I had Tier III fighters with an ace on them and they would take 3 damage attack a French Tier II fighter. I don't understand how the Entente had such a massive advantage in terms of airpower.

[Robotron]

One thing I want to ask is why does the enemy AI get so many fighters that are just better then mine? Like in 1916 I had Tier III fighters with an ace on them and they would take 3 damage attack a French Tier II fighter. I don't understand how the Entente had such a massive advantage in terms of airpower.

To answer both questions:

1. The AI is not restricted by the maximum build limit for "modern" units (fighters, subs, tanks etc.) as the player for the simple reason that I could not find a way to have the AI script respect the build limit.

2. Fighter planes are not meant to directly attack other planes but rather to attack enemy land units, especially artillery or act as interceptors for enemy planes or escorts for friendly bombers.
If you use fighters to directly attack other fighters you are not using them the way they are intended to even though it may seem counter-intuitive since strafing runs on enemy airfields certainly were conducted by both sides.
The reason for the high damage you are suffering is most likely caused by enemy fighters acting as interceptors since a direct attack by a fighter on another fighter in fact counts as an air-to-ground attack triggering an interception by an enemy fighter which has not yet performed an intercept action during that turn.

[FunPolice749]

To answer both questions:

1. The AI is not restricted by the maximum build limit for "modern" units (fighters, subs, tanks etc.) as the player for the simple reason that I could not find a way to have the AI script respect the build limit.

2. Fighter planes are not meant to directly attack other planes but rather to attack enemy land units, especially artillery or act as interceptors for enemy planes or escorts for friendly bombers.
If you use fighters to directly attack other fighters you are not using them the way they are intended to even though it may seem counter-intuitive since strafing runs on enemy airfields certainly were conducted by both sides.
The reason for the high damage you are suffering is most likely caused by enemy fighters acting as interceptors since a direct attack by a fighter on another fighter in fact counts as an air-to-ground attack triggering an interception by an enemy fighter which has not yet performed an intercept action during that turn.

Thanks I wasn't attacking with them directly but was just confused that I seemingly couldn't overcome enemy air power as they just out spammed me and it was quite taxing to deal with as they kept harassing my units until I get the upgrades to provide AA.

One last question but at the start of the game should I be doing multiple events per turn to give me the best kickstart I can? In my last run I did one per turn roughly but I noticed you could do multiple. Should I try to do like say 2 events when they are super cheap so I can get more momentum or is it better to be a little slower pace with them?

[Robotron]

You certainly should play as many events as possible for the first 3 turns, a lot of these events are crucial and will have a rather big impact.

For CP during turn 4 and 5, if Russia is not yet at war, it's the first time to consider using your diplo points for either a gamble to INFLUENCE Sweden (maybe even until turn 6) or for INTEL on France or Russia, depending on who you consider more important and whether Russia is already at war with you.

The reasons for this are twofold:
1. by turn 4 or 5 the CP event pool is mostly reduced to generic stuff that "only" gives you resources
2. the cost for diplo actions has raised to about 5-7 at which point investments in INFLUENCE or INTEL are starting to become big enough to make a difference because the cost equals the INFLUENCE/INTEL points that are getting invested.

After Russia has joined Entente or Germany has begun advancing into France new CP events are fed to the event pool so you'll need to switch back to playing events like Hindenburg/KRA/Groener etc.

Later you might want to invest INFLUENCE on Bulgaria if Bulgaria is really stubborn to join CP or more INTEL on enemies.

[Umeu]

Robos advice is great. Depending on how you like to play, there are more "gamey" shortcuts in the early game.

I always disband any fighter given at the start. Depending on the random rolls, I sometimes also disband a cruiser battleship (taking the 5% nm hit for granted), just so I can squeeze an extra unit out. Also selling the naval lab for any power thats not britain or germany is probably best.

I usually like to build armored trains in the early game with france and AH because it's 1 turn faster than an infantry unit for 10 less PP, while the defensive value is the same in the first few key turns of the game. Placing and being able to use a unit to plug a gap can make the difference between losing Paris or Krakow. Also their high movement points is giid in the early game as warfare hasnt yet bogged down to trenches

Also my rule of thumb is, never build reserves. I do do it in the early game with France, AH and Germany, but with other countries, I try never to. If I have to build reserves, it genrrally means I'm losing the game. I also try tend to disband reserves whenever I can and replace them with better units.

I build trains early, cavalry only vs russia or ottomans to exploit the wide terrain.

And finally, artillery is king. I build artillery labs agressively and early to at least 10, but 20 or even 30 ammo per turn with major powers sometimes, then stockpile while i build more batteries. Then I pool them together, preferably 4 or more, but 3 is imo the minimum to force a front.

Yesterday I did a playthrough as the central powers and eventually failed in 1917 when food crisis killed Germany while Russia somehow didn't surrender even though I took St. Petersberg. Got to Paris on the Western Front but couldn't actually take it as I got stuck. I built a lot of reserves and in hindsight that really hurt me because used those to fill gaps and it later on crippled my offensive potential although the biggest issue was just how big my army had grown as I had reached a point where Germany essentially got like 5 PP per turn. And eventually I just couldn't repair and keep balancing the mounting issue from occurring. Building more Artillery factories is probably something I will try next time so I can better break the Western Front.

One thing I want to ask is why does the enemy AI get so many fighters that are just better then mine? Like in 1916 I had Tier III fighters with an ace on them and they would take 3 damage attack a French Tier II fighter. I don't understand how the Entente had such a massive advantage in terms of airpower.

Imo in potzblitz artillery is the most important unit in the game. From which strangely follows that the fighters and bombers are the 2nd most important units in the game, because they are most effective at shutting down enemy artillery (fighters are less effective, but they do defend your own as well). Of course, it takes a while before they are useful, so infantry is 2nd most important until about 1916.

Tech switches are important. The first person to reach and equip artillery with gas has a major advantage. As a result, rushing out fighter and bomber techs becomes the 2nd tech race.

Though some recent changes made to navies mean perhaps it's possible to fight an effective naval campaign which is more important than the land one. I havent been able to try though.

[FunPolice749]

Just an update I wanted to share but I finally got my first win on the mod as Central Powers! Managed to win in late 1917 with Britain and France giving up.

Managed to reach Paris in 1914 and would take it in mid 1915. Although after that I essentially got stalemated and shifted focused to the Russian front from then on. At the same time I had taken most of the Naval focuses to build up the strongest navy I could and actually managed to start breaking down the British navy and kept the blockade from being enforced to much (although they seemed to somehow keep getting it back while I had like 9 ships there and started to actually starve me out). It's a shame Italy still messes the AI up because once they joined I suddenly had the ability to push deep into France and capture most of the ports along the Channel coast which let me decisively destroy the remaining British navy and essentially stop it from sending any more forces to France alongside starting to completely blockade Britain from convoys.

The Russian Front is honestly so hard to deal with still. Once you guys helped me figure out that whole Russian Steamroller buff and how to stop it I got good enough to generally kill a Russian unit 1-2 turns after they got into the war. Then the lack of units saw them still make ground and by the time I stabilized I also didn't really have the resources to push while also fighting across France. By 1916 I had built up a massive ammo output of something like 25 on Germany. Which enabled me alongside shifting some focus to Russians saw me make actual gains in 1916 taking most of Poland and the Russian front essentially collapsing because I made a massive encirclement of like 15 units as they couldn't spam rail transports to get out from it. As a side note Serbia went really well for me with them surrendering in 1915 before Bulgaria even joined and then the following Greece fight essentially being reduced so much that I could just have Bulgaria keep it bottled up. Also special shoutout to the Swedish event because I got them into the war and the few units they offered like the entire defense of Eastern Prussia which made it so much easier lol.

I ended the war in 1917 after Britain sued for peace early in the year due to it's entire navy being gone alongside things like the Ottoman tribes rising up and helping to take the Suez Canal. This essentially opened the south of France and when combined me somehow getting France to join the Central Powers and I managed to take Bordeaux and force them to give up. The Russian Front also saw me get Romania into the CP and that tore the Russian front wide open. Interestingly I never got the option the option to cause the Russian Revolution even after taking a ton of important cities. Regardless by the time I forced France to give up Russia must have been breaking because the game ended after France was done.

Thanks a lot for the tips overall and I definitely am really happy this mod exists and makes the game more enjoyable again! I do wish there was an easier mode to start with since there is so much going on it's quite hard to learn everything when a fair amount of stuff can't be shown (like the Russian steamroller that you need to remove ASAP). If there was like a mode that gave you maybe like the AI starting units or removed some of the nastier events that can happen it would have been nice to start with (I might honestly have not kept playing if I didn't ask on here for advice because it's quite punishing).

The only other thing is I wonder if there is a more updated version of the event list? There was a host of events I didn't see in game and some of the stuff I saw was really hard to tell what was causing it or what it exactly would do.

[bondjamesbond]

Hello to all fans of this game and the time period of the First World War)

His Majesty's African "Lion" . East Africa. Englishmen. Armored train "Simba"
https://shushpanzer-ru.livejournal.com/2619692.html
https://patetlao.livejournal.com/507330.html
https://everstti-rymin.livejournal.com/5253832.html
https://smolbattle.ru/threads/Бронепоезда.27006/page-4


https://tvd.im/germanyimperial.html


After installing the program ReShade' Version 5.9.2 the game visually became better )
https://reshade.me/

[Munt]

Hi all.

I thin this is a bug.

In turn 13-14 British are change to yellow and lost 10% industry point.

Lost only 33 manpower.

Please check it.

[Umeu]

The game is quite challenging now, great work. Might do an AAR later.

But just some observations:

I managed to take Brussels, Liege & Namur in 1 turn with NV, without the use of AHowitzers. The AI defended the road to Paris poorly, and I managed to attack it with a cavalry unit in turn 5, blocking Gallieni and Marne Taxi events. Which set me up to take the city in turn 6. I stopped the Russian steamroller without taking too much damage, and also took Belgrade in early 1915.

I figured it would be smooth sailing from there, but I was stretched thin in France and Russia. I overextended in Brittany, trying to kick out the inexhaustible stream of British reinforcements. Didn't pay attention to the French who cut me off, and in 1 stroke I lost 3 lvl 3 elite army corps + an elite cavalry corps. Suddenly I was on the back foot in France, and had to strip units from all fronts in a mad dash to reinforce Paris, which was held only by 1 artillery battery, while about 10 French and British units were marching towards it.

I managed to hold Paris, but in 1916 the Netherlands decided to attack me as payback for violating Limburg's neutrality. And at the same time I got a message saying that the British damaged German fortifications in France with mines... and my entire front almost collapsed. I'm not sure, but I think it was the mining war event? Holy shit that stuff is OP.

I did nothing something which looks like it might be a bug. For reasons I can't figure out, my CP fighters in France at constantly suffering losses, even though no enemy fighters are nearby. I also got the Dogfight event, but it shouldn't have been possible as there were no French fighters alive, at least not that I could see. The behavior seems like there somehow is an invisible French fighter unit destroying mine, but idk if that's even possible. EDIT: might actually be French bombers out of range.


Ideas:
The new harsh blockade is great. It forces CP to really consider it, even vs the AI. But it would be great if maybe linking Germany up with Ottomans would add to the German food supplies again. As well as taking lands/cities in Romania and Russia. Not enough to completely mitigate the damage of the blockade, but to at least make sure the Germans last longer if they are succesful in th east.

[Robotron]

@FunPolice749: I'll add a modifier for Entente troops in France to be more likely to stay in place wherever they stand in case Italy joins Entente.

I'm also open to replace one of the existing difficulty settings for singleplayer mode with a new "easy" setting that will positively affect the player's morale losses and combat results. Maybe it could also remove some units from AI, but not sure which. The new difficulty settings then would be "normal", "easy", "hard", "nigh-on impossible".

@Munt: Unfortunately I could not reproduce the effect with the savegame you provided even after multiple tries, so I'm not sure what could have been the cause, sorry. There is a lot of random stuff happening between turn so it's difficult to track back what might have happened in this specific case.

@Umeu: regarding the Ottomans as being a means to alleviate the German/Austrian food situation I'm not convinced as the Turks had trouble feeding their own military and civilians.

https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.n ... iddle_east
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fam ... kin=vector

Instead I'll raise the CP-harvest modifier...
- if Romania joined CP or if either of the Romanian capitals (Bucharest or Iasi) were captured by CP if Romania joined Entente.
- if the Suez Canal is held by CP, representing some "rogue traders" shipping foodstuff by this route.

I've also had a look at the "Mining War" event and defused it a bit.

Another change will be that AH always starts with the Armored Train at Stanislau which now will be removed if "Organize Defense of Galicia" was played.
In my opinion it makes more sense to grant the Austrians a bit more offensive punch represented by that Armored Train if they choose to go with Conrad's aggressive doctrine instead of the other way round as was before.

I'll upload a new update featuring those changes next weekend.

[Umeu]

Yeah that makes sense about the Ottomans. The Suez is a better solution.
I like Romania as well. What about Ukranian/Egyptian capitals? Considering Ukraine and Egypt were (and maybe still are) the granaries of the world.

As for the armored train, is your idea that the train is supposed to be used offensively against the Russians by Conrad? Or just in general? Because I always used it against Serbia

btw I noticed that the Russian Surprise attack seems to bring Russia into the war on the CP turn, meaning that (vs AI at least), the CP can actually attack first into Russia (dunno if it's something you'd actually like to do, but it does kinda defeat the purpose of surprise attack XD) (it works if used as a player, so I guess it's not really an issue. It seems the AI sends the event at end of turn 2 and then doesn't do anything with it?)


in the campaign, playing as Entente (Moltke-Schlieffen, Nigh-impossible difficulty), when I attacked a German Convoy, it triggered Francois to get unlocked (as if I was attacking on Land). Let me know if you need a savegame.

Also, does the difficulty boost AI attack btw? Because the German and Austrian AI seem to score crazy attacks, like 6-0 vs russian 2nd lvl veteran cavalry.

EDIT: noticed a few more things:

in 2 games, (1 playing as CP on normal difficulty, and 1 as Entente on impossible difficulty) I noticed Belgium surrenduring due to reaching 0 morale though they werent attacked. When i was playing entente, their morale just went from 37 to 0 without explanation.

joffre got replaced by nivelle already in may 1915 (first time I've seen this happen and also got Petain <3). It's a bit early but I guess related to Verdun attack.

Also saw Colonel Hentsch event wreak havoc in an MP game. Pretty brutal! But I think it's easy enough to play around so it's fine.

I made it to 1916 with supplies still, should I still get supply crisis as Russia? It feels kinda bad man!


Just finished a game on the hardest difficulty, it lasted until 1918, quite a struggle but scored pyrrhic victory as Entente in the end. Germany's unconditional submarine war actually knocked britain out of the war before the british blockade could do the same to Germany, which was surprising (but I guess due to the difficulty, the morale penalty of losing convoys is increased.) however, the turn after, CP surrendered.




in the end, no nation was really able to produce anything anymore, I couldn't upgrade units as Russia (I never recovered from the supply crisis, somehow my production plummeted from 50 per turn to 0 and then only went back up to 10)

the boost nation morale event actually helped me keep britain in the war a few turns longer. But idk if I'm having historic bad luck with it, or if it's the difficulty setting reducing the bonus, because I usually only got +2 or +3, despite having used it like 10x.

[Robotron]

Yeah that makes sense about the Ottomans. The Suez is a better solution.
I like Romania as well. What about Ukranian/Egyptian capitals? Considering Ukraine and Egypt were (and maybe still are) the granaries of the world.
EGYPT: I've added a further bonus if Suez is held and both Alexandria and Cairo are held by CP and a rail connection from Berlin to Jerusalem exists.
UKRAINE: this is already handled by Russian surrender and gives a small bonus. If "Brest-Litovsk Treaty" was played, the bonus is big enough to basically cancel the effects of the British Blockade.

As for the armored train, is your idea that the train is supposed to be used offensively against the Russians by Conrad? Or just in general? Because I always used it against Serbia
The train is basically just there to represent that AH used a lot of them.

btw I noticed that the Russian Surprise attack seems to bring Russia into the war on the CP turn, meaning that (vs AI at least), the CP can actually attack first into Russia (dunno if it's something you'd actually like to do, but it does kinda defeat the purpose of surprise attack XD) (it works if used as a player, so I guess it's not really an issue. It seems the AI sends the event at end of turn 2 and then doesn't do anything with it?)
Okay, fixed that.


in the campaign, playing as Entente (Moltke-Schlieffen, Nigh-impossible difficulty), when I attacked a German Convoy, it triggered Francois to get unlocked (as if I was attacking on Land). Let me know if you need a savegame.
Good find, fixed.


Also, does the difficulty boost AI attack btw? Because the German and Austrian AI seem to score crazy attacks, like 6-0 vs russian 2nd lvl veteran cavalry.
Only player units suffer from reduced attack strength. Added tooltips for difficulties on scenario selection screen.

EDIT: noticed a few more things:

in 2 games, (1 playing as CP on normal difficulty, and 1 as Entente on impossible difficulty) I noticed Belgium surrenduring due to reaching 0 morale though they werent attacked. When i was playing entente, their morale just went from 37 to 0 without explanation.
Belgian morale automatically drops after a while if just Antwerp is left or "General Government" was played by CP. The morale loss is increased if King Albert is not present or if no other Entente troops are left on Belgian hexes ("Belgium abandoned").

joffre got replaced by nivelle already in may 1915 (first time I've seen this happen and also got Petain <3). It's a bit early but I guess related to Verdun attack.
Made some changes to delay that.

Also saw Colonel Hentsch event wreak havoc in an MP game. Pretty brutal! But I think it's easy enough to play around so it's fine.

I made it to 1916 with supplies still, should I still get supply crisis as Russia? It feels kinda bad man!
Russian Supply Crisis gets triggered if you run out of supplies, the date does not matter. But okay, here's an exciting new proposal: if you manage to delay the Russian Supply Crisis until 1916, playing the "Polivanov" event prevents the crisis from triggering.

(...)

the boost nation morale event actually helped me keep britain in the war a few turns longer. But idk if I'm having historic bad luck with it, or if it's the difficulty setting reducing the bonus, because I usually only got +2 or +3, despite having used it like 10x.
Yes, the difficulty setting modifies all morale changes against your favor, 50% on highest difficulty, meaning you lose 50% more and gain 50% less.

[Umeu]

Great changes, thanks!

[Robotron]

find V23 here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15ss1yB ... m9TvP/view

Changes:

- playing "Organize Defense of Galicia" removes Austrian armored train
- "Patriotic Movement" efficiency reduced if used too often, popup will warn of "Anti-militarist movements"
- Russia activates on Entente turn when Russian surprise attack triggers
- if "Russian Supply Crisis" can be delayed until 1916, playing "Polivanov" prevents crisis from happening. Polivanov also grants five Russian ammo factories for free.
- raised probability for AI Entente units to hold position in France when Italy joins Entente
- control of Egypt+Suez+Jerusalem+rail connection to Berlin or either Romanian capital lowers chance for CP Food Shortages
- Joffre/Nivelle dismissal events delayed
- "Mining War" effect reduced
- replaced "Medium" difficulty with new "Easy" difficulty setting
- tooltips for difficulties on scenario selection screen
- many more minor changes I of course forgot again to make notes of


As always: do NOT update matches already in progress!

[Umeu]

- control of Egypt+Suez+Jerusalem+rail connection to Berlin or either Romanian capital lowers chance for CP Food Shortages

does this also mean that taking these places while in a food shortage/crisis, will help you alleviate said shortage/crisis? Or are you screwed once you're in one?

I'm playing CP vs ai on nigh-impossible, and it actually just seems impossible to win lol. The morale hit of the shortage + entente convoys reaching port hits so hard it drains your morale from 100+ to 0 within like 6 turns. (It's mostly the food crisis events, I think, because the convoys reaching port is supposed to be capped, right?)

It's not a problem on normal difficulty, and so probably not a problem in MP, but the game balance does seem to have pivoted from CP favored both short term early game and long term late game, to Entente favored, definitely in the long term late game. And possibly also in the short term early game (because the Russian steamroller bonus seems too strong. IF that's fixed, the short term early game is probably balanced.)

I'm in the middle of 2 MP games on both sides, so I'll share conclusions once finished XD


edit: must give kudos though, because playing CP on nigh-impossible is a real challenge and it seems to most historically accurate game I've played so far lol. Basically everyone is joining Entente, and they are doing so around the accurate timeframes. Italy joined Ent in 1915, like 1 month before the historical date (Ottomans joined CP same turn, which is late, but it's because I didn't send Goeben to Med). Bulgaria joined later in 1915, also around the historical date, off by 1 or 2 months iirc. Portugal joined in 1916. Romania is joining in 1917 (A bit late but sure). And the USA is on it's way as well... A bit ahistorically, the Netherlands joined Ent (because I violated Limburg's neutrality), but they got an early taste of blitzkrieg. They lasted 2 turns before surrendering. Persia almost brough the Ottomans to their knees in 1916, but it's the Arab revolt that broke the Sultan's camel's back. (Even though I sent Jihad, so this event never should've happened

I manage to shatter French morale though, so I'm hoping I can knock them out before the USA joins. Russia is dead but not surrendering as per usual. I'm unironically training reserves because I need to plug the gaps. I can't upgrade most of my troops, so I'm giving machine guns and infiltration tactics training only to my elite troops... The reserves are holding the line with wooden sticks, or if they have guns, no bullets. It's chaos.

USA declared war and 1 turn later, France surrenders. The Ottomans were near breaking point, I was spamming patriotic movement to keep them in the war. But the French surrender boosted their morale away from that frightful 0. Which is good news, as the Ottoman Empire has been the anchor to the CP campaign. They've tied down almost the entire British army, managed to break through Suez after the Senussi uprising distracted the majority of Britain's and Italy's forces in Egypt and Tunisia. After Suez fell, Cairo followed soon after, and about 10 units were cut off from supply. A worse disaster than Townsend in Kut. At the same time, the Ottomans defended against the Russians in the Caucasus, and then in Iraq as well as Persia joined the war. If the Ottomans fall, this war might end poorly for me.